The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1887-08-17
Gray and Green Parrots.

A gray parrot with red tail stood on
the top of his cage in a New York bird
store and loudly expressed desire for
crackers, while the bird-fancer pointed
to him and talked to the customer.
"That's the bird for you, sir" he said.
" He knows as much as an ordinary
child already, and he is only year old.
Why, he can say anything that he
hears, and can bark like dog in addi-
ton" dog" repeated the parrot,
gravely. " Bow, WOW, wow" He's
an African parrot" the bird-fancier
continued; cas- intelligent as any 1
ever saw. A green parrot with a yell
low head caught the eye of the Gus
toner, and he said he liked its appear
ance better than that of the gray par
rot, and he bought it. {" He made
mistake" said the bird-fancier, after
the customer had gone. But l always
find it more profitable to let people have
their own way. Now there is no COM
parison between those two birds. The
green parrot cannot hold candle to
the gray. I'll guarantee that that gray
parrot will learn anything; l don't
care what it is. He picks up anything
that he hears, and remembers it, too"
A little girl interrupted the bird-fancier
by asking for ten cents worth of bird
seed. "Give it to her quick" re-
marked the gray parrot. Then he
looked severely at the little girl and
said: Mary Ann, I'll tell your ma"
"African parrots" the bird-fancier
continued, after the girl had gone out,
care the cleverest of all the parrots, and
there are nearly four hundred varieties
of them. Their memory is something
wonderful, and / don't believe that they
ever forget a sentence once learned.
They can pronounce the hardest
words, not only in the English Ian
guage but in other languages. An
African parrot learns very quickly,
too, and, if you devote little time to
him every day you would be surprised
to see how quickly he would get along.
Some of them are very amusing at
times. l remember having sold a
splendid bird to an old lady who had
several daughters who were not very
early risers and gave the good old lady
a great deal of trouble on that account
About seven o'clock every morning she
used to 90 to the foot of the stairway
and call: Maria, Louisa, Carrie, get
up The girls did not mind it very
much and used to sleep on until nine
and ten O'Clock. Well after the old
lady bought the parrot she hung its
cage in the hallway land as the parrot
was very tame the cage-door was left
open. The girls said that it was a
dear bird, and were very much pleased
with it indeed. They fed it apples
and everything else they had handy,
and when they went to bed they con-
fided to each other that the new parrot
was indeed a pet. AT seven O'Clock
the next morning the old lady went to
the foot of the stairs and called the
girls as usual. The gray parrot, which
had watched her with interest and
listened attentively to all she had to
say, thought he would try his hand at
calling the girls after the old lady had
gone back to the dining-room. So, imi-
tating her voice, he called: Maria,
Louisa, Carrie, get up AS they didn't,
he thought they might not have heard
him, so he kept on calling until the
girls came downstairs. After that he
called them every morning, until they
couldn't sleep wink after seven
O'Clock, and the old lady was as pleased
as she could be. "-,Selected.